New Delhi: The Indian aviation industry is showing tremendous gains post-COVID with overall air passenger traffic to witness healthy growth of around 8-11% YoY to around 407-418 million in the financial year 2025. According to the latest report by the Independent and Professional Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA), it "projects the overall air passenger traffic to witness healthy growth of around 8-11% YoY to around 407-418 million in FY2025, supported by a strong pick-up in both leisure and business travel, improving connectivity to newer destinations in the domestic segment and the continued uptick in international travel."
The overall passenger traffic had already reached 376.4 million (+15% YoY) in FY2024, surpassing the pre-Covid level by 10%. The revenues of ICRA’s sample set are likely to grow by around 15-17% YoY in FY2025. For the previous years, the overall passenger traffic was reported at 327 million in 2023, 189 million in 2022, 115 million in 2021, 341 million in 2020, 345 million in 2019 and 309 million in 2018.
“The recovery in the Indian airport passenger traffic is one of the best compared to other major global counterparts. India accounted for 4.2% of the global passenger traffic in CY2023, and its share in passenger traffic has improved from 3.8% in CY2019," said Vinay Kumar G, Vice-President & Sector Head, of Corporate Ratings, ICRA.
Hu further added that "while the global passenger traffic recovered to just 96% of global passenger traffic in CY2023, the Indian airport passenger traffic revived to 106% of the pre-COVID level owing to strong economic growth as well as the addition of new airport routes. The Indian air passenger traffic is expected to outperform the global trend.”
It is pertinent to note here that last week according to a report by credit ratings agency CRISIL, half of the country's international air passenger traffic is expected to be catered by Indian airlines by financial year 2027-28. The improvement would be driven by Indian airlines deploying additional aircraft and adding new routes in the international segment, as well as their inherent advantage of superior domestic connectivity compared with foreign carriers.
While the latest trends are showing the overall gains by the Indian aviation industry in the last two years, the concerning fact is the turbulences faced by several airlines due to mergers and internal issues. Recently, Air India Express, the low-cost carrier owned by Tata Group witnessed protests from the crew members against alleged mismanagement at the airline.
Discontent among the cabin crew has been growing, especially since the beginning of the merger process with AIX Connect, formerly known as AirAsia India. Similarly, Tata-owned Vistara also witnessed the same turbulence when several of its pilots alleged the mismanagement and torture from the management ever since the announcement of the merger with Tatas. It may be noted that as part of consolidating its airline business, the Tata Group is merging Air India Express and AIX Connect, as well as Vistara with Air India.
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